


Washington DC (round 1)

by frankiesin



Series: Choir Tour is Wild! [2]
Category: Bandom, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: (Local Dumbass Didn't Realise That Was a Tag Until Now), Alternate Universe - Choir, Alternate Universe - Middle School, Choir Tour, Gen, Kid Fic, Religion, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-13
Updated: 2018-11-13
Packaged: 2019-08-23 07:14:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16614350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frankiesin/pseuds/frankiesin
Summary: It's the kids' first choir tour! Midnight swimming adventures, a bit of internalised homophobia, and other shenanigans ensue!





	Washington DC (round 1)

**Author's Note:**

> Bet you fucks thought I'd forgotten about this AU. You were right, up until a few weeks ago when I re-read Junaluska and was like "aw man I like these dumb kids." 
> 
> So, here we are. Warning for brief descriptions of characters being sick, but that's about it. They're twelve, so nothing's gonna be graphic.

Sixth grade ended with a bang. Ryan’s friend Alex Greenwald had asked him if he wanted to go up to the Greenwald’s lake house the weekend after school finished, and Ryan said yes without asking Spencer about it. And then, on the ride up there, the two boys listened to Matchbox Twenty’s  _ Exile on Mainstream _ and Ryan fell in love with it. 

 

He’d also thought about kissing Alex, which felt weird. Ryan had wanted to kiss girls before, in fourth and fifth grade when everyone else was talking about pairing up and dating and holding hands during recess. There’d even been a rumour that two of the kids in Ryan’s class had had sex. Ryan didn’t know if that was true or not. He just knew that, up until that trip, boys always asked girls out and girls always talked about what boy they wanted to ask them out. There wasn’t much room for a boy to ask another boy out, or even kiss a boy. 

 

Ryan sighed. He was sitting outside his dad’s house, waiting for Spencer and her mom to come get him. He’d joined the church choir and had somehow managed to get a church sponsored scholarship so that he could go on the trip with everyone else. He and Jon were both tenors. Brendon was also a tenor, but Brendon tended to just sing whatever part he liked the best. 

 

Ryan looked up as a faded green minivan came down the street. It was Spencer’s mom, with Spencer still in the backseat because she wasn’t old enough to be in the front. She was big enough, but her mom was weird about safety. Ryan rarely wore a seatbelt. He really only did it when Spencer’s mom noticed and made him put one on. 

 

The car pulled up to a stop and Ryan grabbed his bag. His knock-off Converse scratched against the uneven pavement as he made his way around the back of the van to drop his suitcase in the trunk. Spencer’s was already there, a single bright red suitcase with a tag from a science camp she’d gone to last summer. That was the summer both of them had gotten emails. Before that, if they wanted to talk to each other, they’d call each other on the phone and then go somewhere together. Sometimes it was the mall, sometimes it was just to the pool in Spencer’s neighbourhood. It didn’t really matter where they were, because Spencer and Ryan could make an adventure out of anything. 

 

Ryan’s email was rrrross2708@gmail.com, and Spencer’s was jspencersmith@gmail.com. They had messages that were hundreds of miles long now, because they’d started getting involved in after school stuff. Ryan was on the Peachtree Middle newspaper, and Spencer was on the girl’s softball team. She was a mean pitcher. She’d grown her hair out, too, but only so she could pull it all back in a ponytail. 

 

It was in a ponytail now, low and frizzy at the base of her head. She had a baseball cap on on top of it, with the symbol for the Atlanta Braves proudly displayed in the center. 

 

Spencer turned around to face Ryan. “You remembered your earbuds?”

 

“Obviously,” Ryan said. “I like you guys, but I’m not going to talk to you all the way to DC. That’s a long drive.”

 

“Tell me about it,” Spencer said. She rolled her eyes and pulled out a pack of Spearmint gum. “You want one?”

 

“Sure,” Ryan said. He grabbed the stick from the middle as Ms. Smith pulled off down Ryan’s street and back towards the church. He thought about pulling out his phone and texting Alex, but he didn’t want to be weird. Alex hadn’t texted him back yet. Ryan wanted to be patient. 

 

Only girls were clingy, and Ryan wasn’t a girl. 

 

They pulled into the church while everyone else was unloading all of their things into the youth area. Ryan looked around for one of his friends, knowing that he and Spencer would be sitting with them on the bus. Bus seat assignments were important. The five of them were the youngest people on the tour, so they had to move fast if they wanted to all be sitting together. High school kids were ruthless. 

 

Ryan found Jon first. He was sitting outside of the youth area, on the curb, and bobbing his head along to some random song. Jon always had music going on. Ryan wished he could do that. His dad kept saying he’d get Ryan and iPod, and it kept not happening. Ryan had almost given up on him. He knew his dad wasn’t a great person, but it was a hard reality to swallow. Ryan was 12. He wasn’t supposed to know that his dad was a shitty person yet. 

 

Jon looked up and pulled out one earbud as Ryan and Spencer approached. “Hey, you guys made it! I thought I was gonna be the only one on this trip.”

 

“We could never abandon you,” Spencer said. She ruffled Jon’s hair, and he swatted her hand away. Spencer smiled. “You got us seats on the bus, right?”

 

“Um,” Jon said, looking over at Ryan. “Was I supposed to?”

 

Ryan shrugged. “Probably. But we can grab some now. We’re still pretty early.”

 

Spencer’s mom took Spencer away to sign in, and so Jon and Ryan were left in charge of making sure everything got on the bus. Most of the seats in the back were taken by the time they got in, and so Jon grabbed a couple rows near the front. It wasn’t ideal, because they’d be near the chaperones, but it would have to do. Ryan figured that it was more important to be near his friends than to be far away from the adults. 

 

“Have Brendon and Taylor shown up yet?” Ryan asked. He tossed his and Spencer’s pillows across the aisle. One of the five of them would get a pair of seats to themself. Ryan hoped it was him, so that he could stretch out his legs and be comfortable. It was a long drive to Washington DC. 

 

“I haven’t heard from them,” Jon said. 

 

“Alright, everyone off the bus, we’re going to start the pre-tour meeting soon,” one of the youth leaders said. He was the new one, and Ryan didn’t know how he felt about the guy. He was kind of awkward around everyone, and Ryan didn’t know why he’d decided to be a youth leader if he was that socially off. 

 

Ryan and Jon returned to the youth area and found Spencer. She’d separated herself from her mom and was laying out across one of the couches. She sat up when she saw Jon and Ryan approach and let them sit down with her. 

 

Ryan ended up in the middle, and looked around for any sign of Taylor or Brendon. Taylor’s mom was heavily involved in the church, and Brendon’s parents were the definition of helicopter parents even though they had five kids to helicopter over, so surely they weren’t late. The two had to be here somewhere, probably stuck in the front because they couldn’t get away from their parents fast enough. 

 

“Oh, there’s Brendon,” Spencer said. She pointed to the front row, where Brendon was sitting hunched over in a chair next to his dad. He looked like he wanted to be somewhere else. 

 

Ryan leaned forward and called out, “Brendon! Over here!”

 

Brendon’s head shot up and he looked around. Finally, he landed on Ryan and his face broke out into a grin. He said something to his dad, which turned into a miniature argument, but Brendon eventually got up and wove through the chairs to get back to his friends. 

 

He dropped down on the other side of Spencer. “When did you guys get here? And how did I miss you?”

 

“We were sneaky,” Jon said. 

 

“Jon was sitting outside and not being social,” Spencer said, which was a better explanation. “And then he and Ryan stayed on the bus and left me alone with my mom.”

 

“Your mom’s not that bad,” Ryan said. Ms. Smith was okay, considering she was a mom. “And we had to get three pairs of seats together. Do you know how hard that is?”

 

“Actually, we only need two,” Brendon said. Everyone looked at him. Brendon tapped his feet against the floor. “Taylor’s not coming. Her mom told my mom that she got grounded. I don’t know why. I just know she’s not here, and she’s not gonna be on the mission trip either.”

 

“That sucks,” Spencer said. She dropped back onto the couch and crossed her arms over her chest. “Now I’m gonna get stuck with three random girls. Gross.”

 

“Just sneak into our room, dude,” Brendon said. “No one will notice. You’re practically a guy anyway.”

 

“I thought this place was against boys and girls being near each other,” Jon said. He leaned around Ryan and turned Spencer’s baseball cap around, tucking her ponytail up under it so it looked like she had bangs. He narrowed his eyes. “Actually. You could totally pass off as a guy like that.”

 

Spencer made a fake gang sign and dropped her voice. “Hey fellow dudes. It’s me, bro-Spencer. I think Justin Bieber sucks and I wanna talk about Sports Illustrated.”

 

“You’ve got it,” Ryan said, and took Spencer’s ponytail back out. It was a little unsettling how natural she looked as a guy. He bumped his shoulder against hers. “But seriously, if you want to sneak into our room we’ll figure out how to kick the fourth guy out.”

 

“Thanks guys,” Spencer said. She grinned, and then kicked Brendon in the ankle when he wouldn’t stop humming  _ Dude looks like a Lady  _ under his breath. Spencer really was one of the guys. She fit in perfectly. 

 

* * *

 

Taylor was at home. Alone. Her friends were probably halfway to Washington by now, and she was stuck sitting in her living room and working on her summer assignments. And trying not to cry, because she was grounded for the stupidest reason. 

 

All she’d done was put a little white-out on her report card so that her 81 in math turned into a 91. Her parents were really strict when it came to grades, and she knew that they wouldn’t be okay with a B at all. Taylor just wanted to get to spend her summer vacation with her friends, but now, because she’d gotten caught, she was going to be stuck at home for three months. 

 

Her parents had made her go to the choir instructor and explain why she wouldn’t be on the tour. And then they’d marched her down the hall to explain to her youth pastor why she wouldn’t be on the mission trip that was a few weeks later. Taylor had been sobbing the whole time, but her parents had still made her do it. She felt bad enough that she’d gotten the B and gotten caught trying to cover up her mistake. She didn’t want to embarrass herself further by telling the world that she wasn’t perfect. 

 

Taylor wiped at her face. Her bangs were getting long, and she was thinking about growing them out permanently. 

 

The phone rang, and Taylor jumped up to see who it was. She doubted it would be from any of her friends since they were all on a bus right now. She wanted it to be one of them, though. She wanted to feel like she was a part of something again. Spending summer alone sucked, and Taylor was already tired of it.

 

“Hello?” Taylor said. 

 

“Hi! It’s Brendon!” Brendon said, his voice cackling through the phone. “My mom told me you weren’t gonna be here, but I wanted to talk to you so that it feels like you’re here!”

 

Taylor smiled, and ignored the tears that were forming at the corners of her eyes. She’d been crying over everything recently. Her mom chalked it up to hormones, and to Taylor being ahead of the curve when it came to the whole puberty thing. Taylor wasn’t sure if she believed her mom, but she didn’t have a better explanation as to why everything made her cry now. 

 

She rubbed her face. “Thanks Bren. Where are you guys?”

 

“Uhh,” Brendon said, his voice getting quieter. She could hear Jon saying something in the background, followed by Brendon’s voice, “thanks dude. Jon says we just passed the South Carolina border! We’re driving to Charlotte today, but I think we’re gonna stop soon and get lunch. Or just stop, because the chaperones keep talking about splitting into groups.”

 

“That’s cool,” Taylor said, because she didn’t know what else to say. She wanted to be there with her friends. She wanted to get out of her house. “How’s everyone else? Have you annoyed them yet?”

 

“Ha ha, you’re hilarious,” Brendon said. Taylor could imagine him sticking his tongue out at her. “No one’s annoyed at me. We’re having a great time and we wish you were here.”

 

“Me too, Brendon,” Taylor said, softly. It wasn’t fair. Taylor was smart, and she’d done all her work in school, but because she couldn’t match up to her parents’ ridiculous expectations, she had to stay home all summer. She wiped at her face again, and looked up to see that her mom was hovering in the door. She didn’t look happy to see Taylor on the phone. Taylor swallowed. “I gotta go.”

 

“Okay, I’ll call you later?” Brendon asked.

 

Taylor hung up instead of saying anything else. She didn’t know if she was about to get into more trouble, and she didn’t want to lie to Brendon. Taylor put the phone down, and pushed her hair behind her ears. Whatever happened, her friends weren’t going to leave her. Taylor would be okay.

 

* * *

 

Spencer was in the boy’s room. She wasn’t sitting on the counter, but Jon was, and Spencer envied his bravery. Spencer knew that boys were gross in bathrooms, and that they tended to piss everywhere. Jon could have been sitting in piss and he wouldn’t have even known. 

 

“You sure you don’t want to swim with us?” Spencer asked.

 

“I forgot to bring a swimsuit,” Jon said, which was the dumbest excuse Spencer had ever heard. She’d read the packing list. Bathing suits were listed right under socks and underwear. 

 

“Brendon offered you one of his,” Spencer said. She looked Jon up and down, not in a crush way, but in a curiousity way. He didn’t look weird. He looked like any other guy. He wasn’t overweight, or gangly, or covered in weird skin marks or acne. He was just an average looking twelve year old. Spencer shook her head. “You’re missing out, dude. Swimming is great.”

 

“I’ll pass for now,” Jon said. He pulled out the digital camera his dad had given him at the beginning of the trip. “I’ll just get videos of you three being dumb so that we can show Taylor later.”

 

“Make sure you get Brendon doing a backflip,” Spencer said. “He’s been working on his.”

 

At that moment, Ryan and Brendon came out of the two changing stalls. Ryan was still wearing his t-shirt, because Ryan was gangly and sometimes had bruises and he was self-conscious about it. Brendon, on the other hand, was just in his swim trunks, and he was jumping up and down with excitement. Spencer wished, sometimes, that she could do that. Just throw on a pair of waterproof shorts and call it a day. 

 

Unfortunately, she was a girl, and so she had to get bathing suits that covered her boobs. Girls weren’t allowed to wear two-pieces, which Spencer was very okay with, because she didn’t own any suits that weren’t for swim team anyway. 

 

“Your turn,” Brendon said, whipping his shirt in Spencer’s direction.

 

She grabbed it and tossed it back at his head before heading into the changing stall he’d just left. It was gross, but it was better than being in the girl’s room and changing all alone. Spencer had made it through her first year of middle school without befriending any girls, and she didn’t see that changing soon. Guys were just easier to talk to. Girls were weird, Taylor excluded. 

 

Spencer stripped down before quickly throwing her bathing suit on. She trusted her friends, but she had also heard stories of guys ripping back curtains to be dicks to their friends. Guys liked seeing people naked, and Spencer didn’t like being naked. Being naked was weird, and everything was cold, and she wasn’t a fan. 

 

She pulled back the curtain, only to see that someone else had entered the room. Spencer’s eyes widened. “What are you doing here?”

 

“What are  _ you _ doing here?!” Pete, the soon to be eighth grader in question, snapped back. “You’re not even a guy!”

 

“She’s our friend, dude, don’t make it weird,” Jon said. He sounded on edge. Spencer couldn’t blame him. Pete was older, which meant he knew things they didn’t, and Pete also wore eyeliner and listened to music that Spencer’s parents thought sounded like garbage. Pete was objectively cool. 

 

“Okay, but I still think it’s weird,” Pete said. He was already wearing a swim suit. Spencer didn’t know which of her friends had invited him, but as soon as she found out, she was gonna… do something. They were a group, and they weren’t necessarily exclusive, but they were supposed to  _ ask _ before they invited someone. Especially an eighth grader. Eighth graders were intimidating, not that Spencer would ever admit to it. 

 

“Let’s go,” Brendon said. He jumped over and grabbed Ryan’s arm, pulling him towards the pool exit. Spencer grabbed her clothes, careful to keep her underwear hidden from Pete, and followed them. Jon and Pete followed her, and soon all five of them were out on the pool deck. 

 

It smelled strongly of chlorine. Brendon didn’t give a shit, and quickly walked over to the diving board. He looked over at Jon, who was making himself comfortable on one of the chairs. Brendon waved his arms. “Jon, I’m gonna flip! Get it on film!”

 

“There’s no way he can--” Pete started to say, but then Brendon launched himself off the board and flipped in the air. Jon and Spencer cheered, and Pete elbowed Ryan. “I can totally do that.”

 

“Yeah, okay,” Ryan said. He wasn’t looking at Pete when he said it, though. He was looking at the floor, and his face looked a little red. Spencer frowned; the pool deck was warm, but not that warm. There was no way Ryan was sweating already. 

 

“Guys, get in!” Brendon yelled. 

 

“Shut up, dude!” Spencer yelled back, and then jumped in dangerously close to Brendon’s head to freak him out. She had no idea how they were going to get their suits dry before they had to leave in the morning, but that was a problem for future Spencer. Current Spencer was trying to not get shoved back underwater by Brendon, who had decided that diving wasn’t enough fun, and that he had to drown all of his friends. 

 

Pete ended up doing a cannonball instead of a flip, and Ryan dived in like he was starting an event at a meet. Spencer wasn’t sure how long the four of them swam around, because there wasn’t a clock and she didn’t care, but after about three rounds of failed Marco Polo, Jon yelled out that his camera was out of battery and that they should probably go back to their rooms. 

 

Ryan frowned. “Dude. Come on. Get in for like, five minutes.”

 

“I don’t have a bathing suit.”

 

“Underwear?” Ryan suggested. “We’re all friends here, we’re not gonna make fun of you for having stupid underwear.”

 

“Yeah, we all know the only person here with stupid underwear is Spencer,” Brendon said. Spencer splashed him in the face and he coughed. It wasn’t her fault that girl underwear sucked. She’d rather be wearing Spiderman underwear than stuff with little pink designs all over it. 

 

Jon frowned. “You’re sure?”

 

“Yeah, dude, I’d swim naked if we were all guys,” Pete said, which was unnecessary. He looked over at Spencer and made an apologetic face. “Sorry Spence. You’re pretty much one of the guys, but you’re still a girl and you don’t get to see a dick just yet.”

 

“If you ever show me yours I’ll bite it,” Spencer said. She wasn’t sure what she’d do if she ever did see a dick. It wasn’t something she’d thought about. She knew that girls (and guys) in her grade were starting to talk about dating and making out and stuff, but Spencer wasn’t interested. The thought of kissing a guy made her want to throw up. Guys probably tasted weird. Spencer didn’t want anything to do with that.

 

Jon shook his head. “Okay, fine, I’ll get in. But only if you guys promise to stop being so gross.”

 

“Pete’s the one being gross,” Brendon said. “I just wanna swim.”

 

“I got you, dude,” Jon said. He slowly lifted his shirt, like he was afraid of what was underneath it. There wasn’t anything weird underneath. Sure, Jon’s hips were wider than Ryan’s or Pete’s and kind of looked like girl hips, but Brendon had girly lips  _ and _ a girly butt, and none of his friends teased him about it. Other people did, but friends were friends and they didn’t go after real insecurities. 

 

“Strip tease,” Ryan muttered. He glanced over at Pete when he said it. 

 

“Ew, no, I don’t want to see Jon strip,” Brendon said. He covered his eyes with one hand and tried to cover Spencer’s with his other. 

 

Spencer swatted his hand away. “Oh my God, Jon’s not stripping for us Brendon. Stop being weird.”

 

“Yeah Brendon, stop being weird,” Jon echoed. He was standing on the edge of the pool now, in a pair of grey boxer briefs, and he had his arms crossed over his chest. He grinned down at the four of them. “Are you guys gonna get out of my way, or am I gonna have to jump over all of you?”

 

“Do it!” Spencer yelled. “Jump, you coward!”

 

“Oh my God,” Jon said, laughing. He started to back up, and Spencer thought he was actually backing out, but then he started running forward. He lept into the air, limbs flailing, and landed with a splash behind them all. Spencer treaded water while watching Jon’s form hover at the bottom of the pool for a moment. With no warning, he shot back up, throwing his arms out before flipping his curls out of his face. He grinned. “Ta-da. Don’t ever underestimate me again.”

 

“You’re a legend, Jon Walker,” Brendon said. 

 

They actually went up after that, because Jon didn't want to leave his camera out where it could get wet and they were all sure it was late enough. Spencer went into the girl’s room this time, because she needed to towel dry her hair and she didn’t want to get caught naked. The others were done and waiting for her once she came out, and she rolled her eyes when Ryan asked what took her so long. 

 

Going back up to her room alone sucked more than Spencer had expected it to, though. It was okay during the day, because she could hang out with her friends on the bus and at lunch and at rehearsals, but at night the three of them were off laughing in one room and Spencer was stuck listening to her three roommates go on and on about the Jonas brothers. 

 

None of the Jonas brothers were hot. And Twilight sucked, too. Spencer hated it all. Girls were stupid, and she wanted no part of them. 

 

* * *

 

Brendon woke up feeling horrible the next morning. The good news was that he wasn’t the only one with a stomach bug. The bad news was that Jon and Ryan were the other two people who were sick. And the three of them were sharing a bathroom with another sixth grader named Patrick, who deserved better than to sit around while his three roommates alternated getting sick in the bathroom. 

 

“Are you guys gonna go down for breakfast?” Patrick asked after about an hour. 

 

Ryan looked up at Patrick from where he had dramatically splayed himself out on the floor. “I don’t think I could keep breakfast down, so no. I’m going to pass.”

 

“Okay,” Patrick said. He looked over at Brendon. “Should I tell someone you guys are sick?”

 

“Probably,” Brendon said. He slammed his fists against the bathroom door as a wave of nausea crossed his stomach. “Jon! Jon I’m gonna die!!”

 

“Hold on,” Jon grumbled from the other side of the door. Patrick disappeared then, probably glad to be away from them. Brendon leaned against the door, trying not to get sick on his shirt, and then almost fell over when Jon opened it. Brendon looked up at Jon, and Jon looked down at Brendon with wide brown eyes. “Um. I feel better? I think I’m gonna go downstairs. Don’t die without me.”

 

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Ryan mumbled. 

 

Brendon scrambled under Jon’s legs, too panicked to think about going around him, and slammed the door shut. He could hear Jon and Ryan talking, but he wasn’t paying too much attention to them. He was preoccupied. 

 

When Brendon left the bathroom, he managed to convince Ryan to get up off the floor and go downstairs with him. He wanted to know why all three of them were sick, and he really hoped it didn’t have to do with the pool trip last night. If the pool was making people sick, that meant that Spencer (and Pete, but Brendon didn’t really care about Pete) would be sick too.

 

Brendon really, really, didn’t want Spencer to be sick. He had developed a bit of a crush on her, and so her well-being mattered a lot to him. 

 

Spencer was one of Brendon’s best friends, and she was funny and sassy and she never said anything that actually upset Brendon. Most girls were just mean to Brendon, or they laughed at him behind his back. He’d tried talking to Taylor about his crush on Spencer, but Taylor was even more awkward than Brendon was and so he didn’t really trust her advice. She was a girl, but she and Spencer were very different. 

 

“You’re thinking too much,” Ryan said. “It scares me.”

 

“I’m not,” Brendon said, too quickly. “I’m not thinking about anything. Especially not about Spencer. Or girls.”

 

“Spencer  _ is  _ a girl,” Ryan said. He stared at Brendon for a moment, and then seemed to decide that he wasn’t all that invested in Brendon’s thoughts and stepped off the elevator. “Whatever. Maybe you just need a CapriSun. Those things are like Adderall for you.”

 

“Thanks?” Brendon said. He jogged after Ryan, who had significantly longer legs and walked like he was trying to win a marathon. The two boys found Jon and Spencer at a table. Jon was picking the shell off of a hardboiled egg and Spencer was staring at her bagel. Brendon dropped down beside her. “Are you trying to put the cream cheese on with your mind?”

 

“No,” Spencer said. She didn’t sound great. “I’m trying not to get sick. Again. What was in the pool?”

 

“I don’t know, but I think swimming was a mistake,” Jon said. He shook his head and flicked a piece of shell off his finger. “I told you guys. At least I got a lot of good footage.”

 

“At least,” Ryan grumbled. He looked around, searching for someone. Pete, probably. Brendon didn't understand why Ryan liked hanging out with Pete. Pete was intense and he only wanted to make sex jokes. Brendon didn’t like sex jokes, because sex was supposed to be sacred, between a man and a woman and only after they’d gotten married. Sex wasn’t a fun thing, either. That’s what his parents had told him. They’d said that if sex was fun it was because Satan was there, leading a couple away from the purpose of sex (having babies) and towards pleasure. 

 

“Dude, your thing for Pete is so obvious,” Spencer said. She rolled her eyes. “If he wants to sit with us, he will.”

 

“I don’t have a thing for Pete,” Ryan growled.

 

“Wait, Ryan,” Jon asked, abandoning his egg for a moment. “Are you gay?”

 

Ryan whirled on Jon like Jon had asked Ryan why his dad wasn’t a chaperone. “What?”

 

“No, no, it’s--” Jon stammered, waving his hands. “There’s… there’s nothing  _ bad _ about being gay--my Godfathers are gay--but I just. I don’t know. It’s a thing. That people are. And you might be. I don’t know.”

 

“I’m not gay,” Ryan growled. His whole face was red. Brendon couldn’t tell if he was angry or embarrassed. “I just want to be friends with Pete because he has a good taste in music, okay?”

 

Spencer made a face that Brendon didn’t understand, and bit into her bagel. No cream cheese, just bagel. Brendon sighed and shook his head. “Well, fine. If you’re not going to use the cream cheese, I guess I’ll get a bagel and use it myself. Ryan, do you want anything?”

 

“No,” Ryan said. He’d sunk down far into the cushions of the booth, and it didn’t look like he was going to come out any time soon. His hair was curling up, but it was still long enough to fall into his eyes. He looked very emo. That was probably his goal, after all, if he wanted to be friends with Pete. 

 

Brendon came back with a bagel (blueberry, because he liked to have fun) and sat back down beside Spencer. She was warm, which was nice except that they were in North Carolina and it was June and therefore hot outside already. Brendon took her cream cheese anyway and used it himself, and tried to ignore how awkward things were on the other side of the table. Jon was messing around with his camera and Ryan was still one with the cushions. 

 

Brendon sighed. “Guys. Please don’t fight. I don’t want to make any more friends.”

 

“Yeah, seriously,” Spencer said. “Jon, asking people if they’re gay is weird, and Ryan, no one actually thinks you’re gay. We just didn’t expect you of all people to want to make new friends.”

 

“Pete’s cool,” Ryan grumbled. “He went to a Green Day show.”

 

“That is pretty cool,” Jon said, slowly, like he was going to upset Ryan again if he spoke. Jon looked over to where Pete was sitting with some other kids that Brendon didn’t know. “We should ask if he wants to be in our group when we go to the monuments and stuff.”

 

“Okay,” Spencer said. “But just Pete. His other friends suck.”

 

“We might have to ask his friends,” Brendon said. “We’re supposed to have ten people to a group, and there’s only four of us since Taylor’s not here.”

 

“Dang,” Spencer said. She sighed. “Well. I guess. Are you guys gonna invite Patrick too, or just Pete and his friends?”

 

“We can invite Patrick,” Ryan said. He shrugged when the other three looked at him. “What? He’s okay. He’s kind of annoying, but so’s Brendon and we still hang out with him. Besides, I think Patrick’s trying to be friends with some of Pete’s friends anyway. Two birds, one stone.”

 

“I think that’s the most you’ve said at once this trip,” Spencer said. She grinned and offered Ryan a high-five, which he accepted reluctantly. “I’m proud of you, dude. You’re gonna be a normal kid and have friends soon.”

 

“Shut up,” Ryan said. There was a little smile on his face, though, and Brendon knew things were going to be okay between them all again. They’d survived pool flu together. They could survive anything now. 

 

* * *

 

Jon took another picture. He was glad he’d brought his new laptop with him, because he’d taken so many pictures and videos that he’d run out of space on his camera twice this trip. Admittedly, it was a small camera and his parents had refused to get him a real one until he proved he was responsible, but still. Jon had a lot of footage. He was thinking about putting it all together and making a little documentary about it. 

 

Jon didn’t know what he wanted to do when he grew up. He’d thought about journalism, and film, and maybe working with the Discovery channel to make those weird found footage shows that came on at night, but he didn’t know. All he knew was that he really liked cameras and that he preferred to be behind the camera at all times. 

 

He knew it had to do with dysphoria. He was on hormone blockers, so he wasn’t going to go too far down the girl puberty rabbit hole, but he still felt like his body was changing the wrong way. His hips were too wide. And he was sure he was getting boobs, even though no one had commented on it when they went swimming together. And on top of all that, Jon’s voice wasn’t cracking. He looked more like Spencer and Taylor than he did Ryan and Brendon, and soon, everyone was going to notice the difference. 

 

Jon was a little scared of that. He just wanted to be a guy. He didn’t want to have to go through all this work just for people to see that he was a guy. 

 

It wasn’t fair, but at least Jon could stay behind the camera and capture all of his friends having fun. At least he had that.

 

“Do you think we can get on the Metro without anyone noticing?” Spencer asked. 

 

“No?” Brendon said. He’d been hovering beside Spencer for the whole trip. Jon wasn’t going to say anything, but he thought that Brendon had a crush on Spencer. He didn’t want to be wrong again and have Brendon get mad at him. Dealing with an angry Ryan had been enough stress for one trip. 

 

“Dang,” Spencer said. She looked over her shoulder at Jon, and her ponytail swooshed. “Do  _ you _ think we could sneak onto the Metro?”

 

“I’m not helping you run away,” Jon said. 

 

“I just wanna explore, dude,” Spencer said. “Why’s that so hard for everyone to get? We’re on vacation, we should be doing what we want and having fun!”

 

“I’m having fun,” Brendon said. He had a drawstring bag filled with random CDs and knick-knacks he’d picked up from people on the street. Everyone in DC had something to sell, and Brendon had a lot of cash for a twelve year old. “I’ve got presents for all of my younger siblings now, and a bunch of new music to listen to when I get home. I didn’t know there were so many mixtapes.”

 

“A lot of them are going to be bad,” Jon warned. “If people can’t get signed by a real music person, they end up selling their music to random people.”

 

“That’s okay,” Brendon said. He looked around to make sure that Ryan wasn’t around. “Anything is better than Pete’s music. It’s so loud, and… angry?”

 

“That’s the point,” Spencer said. 

 

“Still. It’s bad and I don’t really like it. I just don’t want to tell Ryan yet because I know he’ll get sad,” Brendon said. He skipped ahead a few steps and then fell back in line with Spencer and Jon. He looked at Jon’s camera, and then past it, to Jon himself. “Are you… what are you gonna do with all your videos?”

 

“I think I might make a do--make a movie out of them,” Jon said. He’d almost said documentary. No one his age thought documentaries were cool. People only watched documentaries in school, and therefore documentaries sucked. So Jon lied, said movie, and hoped that his friends wouldn’t laugh at him if they realised that he wanted to make real documentaries one day. 

 

Brendon broke out into a grin. “That’s so cool! Please don’t keep the part where I said Pete’s music sucks. Especially if Ryan’s gonna see it.”

 

“Ryan’s in it,” Jon said. “And I’ll cut it out. Don’t worry.”

 

Brendon grinned harder. Jon shut off his camera for the moment, deciding to let reality win for now. They still had two more days left on the trip. One would be spent in DC, and the other would be a long, long trip back to Atlanta. Jon wanted to enjoy DC, just like he wanted to get it on film. 

 

He was still scared about his friends finding out his secrets, but he was going to do his best to not think about it. They were his friends. Hopefully, if they did find out that Jon was trans and liked documentaries, they wouldn’t kick him out of their friend group. Jon didn’t want to get kicked out. He wasn’t sure where else he’d make such a cool group of friends. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please leave a comment/kudos if you enjoyed!


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